Category Archives: health care

I’ve seen a number of posts around the internets going into which states are the most against ObamaCare (for example, the fat ones) and asking about whether someone would have a heart attack and refuse free care for it.

These people are missing the point. It’s not about people wanting to refuse care for themselves; it’s about not wanting the undeserving to get free care on the taxpayer’s back. The John Galt “I will never work for another man” sentiment. This is a fundamental left/right divide, and it’s important to remember that when discussing opposition to ObamaCare: even if it worked flawlessly and didn’t crush the deficit, the problem is that it hands free care to people who aren’t paying for it. That is what riles the right.

I readily admit I didn’t see this coming. Justice Roberts switching sides really surprised me, and watching the Freepers and Fox Nationalists losing their shit is providing some nice schadenfreude.

Been doing this a lot, but so sorry about the complete blackout there. Things went dark a bit and I readily admit that ol’ Hanlon was kinda hiding from the site and the news until a day or so ago. Things are on the up and up now though.

I want to put this up because I’m seeing a number of sites claiming that Romney would, blanket-style, deny anyone with a pre-existing condition health care. I don’t agree with his policy overall, but that claim just ain’t true.

With a bow toward the politics on pre-existing conditions, he said, “I don’t want [people] to be denied insurance because they’ve got some preexisting condition so we’re going to have to make sure that the law we replace Obamacare with assures that people who have a preexisting condition, who’ve been insured in the past are able to get insurance in the future so they don’t have to worry about that condition keeping them from getting the kind of health care they deserve.” Luckily, several major healthcare insurers have said the would do this voluntarily.

Again, I’ve said multiple times that the problem with American health care is that it’s privatized. However, if we’re stuck within privatized health insurance, one thing that just won’t work is forcing insurance companies to cover anyone and everyone for the simple reason that it would bankrupt them. Romney’s plan fixes a rather egregious hole in the system wherein someone might have insurance, lose it, and then be unable to get coverage later. That’s a big problem, and one that can be fixed within the current structure.

I’ve harped on this before, but the reason I’m going after it again isn’t to defend Romney, it’s to point out that the proposed solution is untenable in a privatized health care system.

Righties often say that the US has care available for everyone, in the sense that the ER can’t turn you away. From a strictly economical perspective, don’t they realize that it would cost the public far less to give that person normal health care that keeps them healthy than paying out the ass for their emergency operation or what have you when their inability to get coverage reaches a head?

“Well, if they’re 45 years old, and they show up, and they say, I want insurance, because I’ve got a heart disease, it’s like, `Hey guys, we can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you’re well, and if you get ill, then you’re going to be covered,’” Romney replied.

The secret? Mitt’s 100% right.

The problem isn’t that insurance companies are cruel in denying care, the problem is that privatized insurance relies upon as few payouts as possible. Because it’s opt-in, the only way for the business to stay afloat is for the average customer to pay more than they need over time, and if clients can show up, having put zero dollars in, and need a $50,000 operation, it means the rest of them need to pay in at least that much just to avoid losing money.

If insurance companies were forced to provide coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, then that begs the question: who in their right mind would pay for insurance if they aren’t sick? If you could call up Blue Cross or Aetna and say “hey guys I just got leukemia, pay for my treatment” and the law forced them to, every sane person would simply go uninsured until they needed it, then dump the plan after they got better. It would no longer be “insurance”, it would become “discount health care”. No one would ever have insurance for 15 years “just in case” if they could wait until disaster and then get full coverage.

Mitt’s comment exposes a situation that few want to really tackle: insurance companies aren’t the disease, they’re merely a symptom of the disease, which is privatized health care.

That’s why public programs work so well for the police, the military, and infrastructure. Taxes are mandatory, so everyone need only chip in a little bit for everyone’s benefit. I may not drive on a given road or ever need the police to save my ass, but since I have a couple bucks taken out of my pocket for it, everyone can feel safe knowing those things are covered. Imagine private infrastructure where roads were fixed only through donations, or you had to buy a “subscription” to them.

Mitt isn’t wrong, and I hope his comment makes people look not at “cruel CEOs”, but the very notion of leaving medical care up to private enterprise.

“Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment?” Scalia asked — a joking reference to the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. “You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?

“And do you really expect the court to do that? Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks? Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?”

Yes! God dammit, yes! That’s exactly what I expect!!

Just out of curiosity, what does he propose the court base its decision upon? Just whatever the people said it contains? This is what’s become of American law (and I say this in a nonpartisan way). Bills are gigantic and unwieldy, voted upon without being read and then challenged by people who haven’t read them in courts where they can be decided upon by judges who haven’t read them after hearing arguments by lawyers who haven’t read them. And no one is able to figure out why all these sneaky provisions manage to squeak past everyone.

If the bills are too long to read, either make them shorter or buckle up and read them anyway. Judge motherfucking Judy won’t even decide a case until she reads all the pertinent documents, and Scalia is going to judge on a massive case like this without doing so? Too long? How long is too long? What length is just barely short enough to read? If a bill goes over that line by a page, does that mean we can just go on whatever people say?